


cupid is irresponsible (and i'm tired of him using me for target practice)

by C_AND_B



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Identity Reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 16:43:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20312734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/C_AND_B/pseuds/C_AND_B
Summary: kara falls in love hard and fast. it never really ends well. until it does.





	cupid is irresponsible (and i'm tired of him using me for target practice)

**Author's Note:**

> a little different to usual but i don't hate it so imma launch it out there. hope y'all don't hate it either
> 
> title from scars/to the new boyfriend by rudy francisco

Kara falls in love, or what in the moment she truly thinks is love, for the first time in a world she doesn’t really understand. Kenny Lee (_keeper of secrets,_ Kara always finds her mind whispering as an afterthought) - the first person who ever made her feel like she could maybe survive on Earth.

It wasn’t that Eliza and Jeremiah weren’t nice. They were more than. They always offered comfort, and answers, and help before Kara even knew she needed it, and later Alex became the person she turned to no matter her problem but first… first there came Kenny.

Kenny who knew what she was and never once flinched about being her friend. Kenny who learned her secret and never backed her into a corner, never tried to make her admit something she wasn’t even the slightest bit ready to admit, never stopped to question that she was anything other than the completely average, slightly strange Kara she told him she was.

She liked his easy smile even though life wasn’t always easy on him. She liked his dimples and love of stars because it made her feel closer to home to have someone who could pinpoint where her planet once stood, where the light still shone.

Kenny made her feel seen. Understood. Even if he never admitted to her just how much.

Kara would call him her first love. He made her smile and back then she used to think that was the main thing - that love should always be about happiness (she learns the hard way that it’s often not the case but not yet. For then it remains unsullied). He didn’t make her feel human, but he never made her feel weird, and then he was ripped away from her.

(Even in death he brought her Alex.

She’d always thank him for that).

* * *

Donna Troy is a breath of fresh air. Kara meets her in her first year of college in what all the romance books she devoured when she got to Earth seemed to call a ‘meet-cute’. Her first journalism lecture of the year where she spills an entire drink on her notes and Donna rips out her own sheets without a second spent deliberating, pushes them across the distance between them without thought.

She doesn’t know her as Donna then. For that second, she’s just the pretty girl who decided to sit next to her at the beginning of the hour. The girl with the muscled physique and clear blue eyes. The girl who Kara had been so aware she was pressed up against the entire time because their collective shoulder span wasn’t quite the normal human college-girl size.

She calls her Donna when she takes her for coffee with the two dollars in her account to thank her for her kindness. That’s her excuse anyway. They both know it’s more of a date, or so the wandering foot that runs along Kara’s calf would suggest.

She’s the first girl that Kara ever truly falls in love with and she reminds her of flying. She makes Kara feel like she’s finally seeing the world from the angle it should be seen, from the place that it presents itself best, from the place where it looks just a little bit less messy. She makes her feel free.

They both know there’s something not quite human about each other’s touch but neither of them call into question the power they feel in the other’s hands. Kara likes the feeling of just existing like that. Not hiding but not having to divulge. Seen but never exposed.

It doesn’t last long. They both have… bigger, different futures ahead of them. They both have things they need to do and the wind blows them in two separate directions. It’s amicable but Kara still can’t shake the feeling that she’s lost a limb for a few days. There’s a phantom itch where Donna’s hand used to exist in her own that her logical mind can’t explain away.

She still sees Donna time and again. Sometimes in the flesh, sometimes splattered across the papers in a tight costume and a grin like she’d found what she was meant to be doing. Kara knows she’d come running if she ever needed help, knows the same is true the other way around. She still listens to every story Clark passes along from Diana with apt attention, but her heart doesn’t race in the same way anymore. It’s just a little warm with the knowledge that Donna will always own that one flickering light in her chest.

(It was a hard and fast kind of love.

Kara wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world).

* * *

Zatanna.

Zee.

Mistress of Magic.

She’s a force to be reckoned with. A whirlwind with a wand and a magician’s hat. Kara meets her on her first week of being Cat’s assistant - the third day to be more precise.

She walks herself to a bar. She knows that she can’t get drunk but that doesn’t mean she won’t try her hardest to get there. She doesn’t succeed. She starts to see the side-eyes she’s receiving from people who are just waiting to see if she’ll fall off her stool, the weary looks from the bartender as he passes her another drink and wonders when he’ll be attempting to decipher her drunken code to try and discern what number he should call to get her home safe.

Zatanna appears with a flourish and the promise of a magic trick. Kara’s curious. More so when the trick ends up being Zatanna’s number sitting proudly in her phone contacts without her seemingly ever having touched the device (Kara’s passcode isn’t even her birthday). It’s a flagrant misuse of magic and also completely, utterly charming.

It takes Kara a while to realise she’s _actually_ magic and not just a magical presence. It takes Zatanna significantly less time to realise Kara is like the flying man on the TV in the blue and red suit.

She sends Kara messages whilst she’s at work once the secret’s out. In her head, not on her phone. Kara blushes at her desk more times than she cares to count and never has a good enough excuse as to why. It’s another misuse of epic power. Kara still finds it infinitely charming.

Zatanna speaks of how she lost her father, how he disappeared without a trace. Kara, in turn, speaks of how she lost her family too. Different but the same. Zatanna herself disappears at some point, although she makes sure to say goodbye first. She wanted to save the world, she said. Kara was still to busy hiding. It’s why she ignores the wordless pleas to go with her, why she carries on with her life like there was no part of her that wished for that life too, wished to help people with her gifts.

(They were too much alike.

And not nearly enough).

* * *

(For about an hour Kara thinks she could love Winn if she tried.

She nips that in the bud real quick).

* * *

Adam Foster is…surprising.

She can see Cat in his eyes but there’s something soft about him that she would never let sit so brazenly on the surface - even if she had it inside her to be that way.

He’s sweet. Kara thinks she needs that, almost as much as she needs him to be normal. Even if normal happens to be her boss’s son and things are kind of complicated, _he_ is normal. No powers. No ulterior motives. Just a boy who likes her and who she likes in return.

There’s a moment in which Kara thinks she could let herself love him in time. Then there’s the next moment where she realises normal may be what a part of her wants but it isn’t what she needs. She doesn’t need to bare her soul to another individual, doesn’t need to put someone else in harms way, doesn’t need something standing in the way of her and the bigger things on the horizon in her life.

(For the first time she understands why Donna and Zatanna had to leave.

This was her moment to spread her wings and take flight).

* * *

Kara is enamoured with James Olsen from the second she sees him.

He has a girlfriend. An incredibly attractive, nice-smelling, funny, girlfriend who Kara can’t blame him for being in love with because if she wasn’t already struggling with her feelings for James, she might have been in love with her too. It doesn’t stop her from feeling so incredibly trapped in his orbit.

She thinks it’s his easy smile. His need to do good that Kara understands from herself. Their shared knowledge of what she can do. There is no need for secrets from the beginning; everything is already out in the open. Kara likes that - the fact that she doesn’t have to censor herself.

He’s handsome too. Strong. Maybe it’s wrong to enjoy the way he towers over her but Kara revels in it anyway. Sometimes she can trick herself into thinking he would be stronger than her, that his outward stature means something more than it does, that she’s just like any other regular girl. That it wouldn’t hurt to touch with all her might. Sometimes she gets too caught up in the fantasy. Sometimes she thinks that if she stands in the shadow of his broad shoulders, maybe the world wouldn’t feel so heavy. It doesn’t work.

She expects kissing James to feel like the final crack of a firework after listening to it whirl into the sky but there’s no bang. Only distraction, and terror, and then even when the world becomes quiet again, she realises her heart feels quiet too. None of the magic. None of the music. None of the love she had built up in her head. It’s vexing. To build something up so much and have it not be anything.

James doesn’t take it hard. Their friendship remains strong, no remnants of anything else under the surface. Not for Kara at least. Sometimes she thinks James still looks at her a little too much, _a little too long_. Sometimes she thinks he’s still is a little quick to jealousy with people around Kara, even if he doesn’t really have the right. Sometimes she thinks he’s still protective in a way that’s tinged with something else, something far beyond the friendship they agreed upon.

(But Kara picks up her bruised heart and moves on.

Always moves on).

* * *

Mon-El is childish. He’s reckless, and selfish, and an outright asshole, and he reminds her so much of home that it hurts sometimes. He holds power in his hands and holds her hands with power. She falls into it with her eyes closed. She doesn’t think about the pitfalls, just lets her heart lead the way. That stupid, beating organ that tells her this, _he_, is her last connection to the world she lost.

Clark didn’t remember, didn’t ever get a chance to remember, didn’t experience, but Mon-El knew of her world just like she did, knew what it felt like to watch everything you love crumble and be the only one left to know what it looked like when it was whole. He knew. _He knew_.

She thinks of him as her second chance. Her second chance to help, to be what her mother asked her to be, to show someone the right way. Her second chance at holding something unbreakable.

She tries to change him into something better. He more subtly tries to change her into something else. She calls it love but she’s not really sure. She does know that she feels less alone. Like someone else spends their time looking at the stars and knowing they’re dead. Feels like someone else looks at people that seem just like them and knows they’ll never be exactly the same. She feels like someone else has the same blood rushing through their veins, and the same pains. She feels like someone else closes their eyes and sees things they will never see again, things that no one else will be able to see, no matter how hard she tries to explain them.

They’re imperfect. They’re broken. He doesn’t deserve her but whatever the feelings between them were called; they were built on loss, and the comfort that comes after. The comfort Kara realises she still needs, even after all this time. So she slips on her rose tinted glasses and tells herself he’s everything she wants, needs, loves because it’s easier than being lost and alone.

Then it’s all ripped away again anyway. It’s sudden, and jarring, and Kara feels a little like she’s lost her world all over again. Her last tether to it at least. Her last bit of light from a setting red sun.

(It feels like the universe is chipping away at her stone heart.

She wonders what it’s sculpting).

* * *

Lena Luthor comes into Kara’s life like a series of arrows. The adrenaline running through her veins means it takes her a while to realise she’s been shot but the prick is there the first time they meet. Like a pushpin to the back of her neck the second Lena smiles at her. She’s beautiful.

Perfectly crafted and completely aware of the musicality of her every action. The complete opposite of an awkward Kenny who took no note of his movements because he never cared to. She moves like she has ballet in her bones. Like Degas painted her every movement. She awakens something in Kara and Kara steadfastly ignores it. Talks it down until it goes back to sleep and so the feelings lie in wait. Dormant as Kara builds her heart up and watches as a gust of lead filled air causes it to tumble back down.

The second arrow comes much later, though the bow it’s shot from it no less subtle. It comes from a message in the form of a heart. Just a single heart and the consequent realisation that it’s Lena who manages to pull her back into the light. Lena who reminds her who _Kara_ really is - that she isn’t just the last daughter of Krypton, or Supergirl. She’s a citizen of earth, she is Kara Danvers, and she doesn’t need her former home to have purpose, to be a real person.

It’s Lena who reminds her she wouldn’t give up what she’s built here for anything. That she shouldn’t throw away everything she strived so long for. Her sister, her friends, her Lena. Lena who she never considered deserved her own category before but maybe she did. That thought comes like a switch being flicked on inside her head and flooding her mind with light. She doesn’t think she will ever be able to sit in the dark again.

Arrow three comes after that. She’s more aware of what it is this time - the feeling that rushes down her spine, the spark of pain that’s really pleasure, the twinge in her back like the arrowhead hasn’t fully settled into her skin. It’s lunch. It’s just a lunch or it should be, and somehow it’s not.

Lena hugs her when she walks through the door and, as she squeezes her tight, Kara feels like a taught bow string ready to spring. Kara had always been tactile. She had always hugged without reservation or remorse. Little hand touches, and shoulder squeezes, and forearm grazes. Touch was her love language and she spoke it often, but she had never felt so warm in an embrace until then.

Until Lena. It’s… strange. A little unnerving. She can’t wait until it’s time to leave so she’ll finally have the excuse to do it again. Strike three. The target on her back becomes a little more crowded and Kara’s sure she can hear Eros laugh when her fingers graze Lena’s lower back as they part ways with lingering arms, and hands that separate so gently in a slow parting touch.

Four comes from seeing Lena protective. All Kara wants to do is keep her safe and it hits her as Lena grabs her hand for the nth time to stop her walking away, that all Lena wants to do is the same for her. Lena who thinks Kara is just as vulnerable as her and puts herself in the way of danger. She stands in front of Kara with proud shoulders and a hand reached behind her meant to keep Kara back and soothe her all at once.

Lena’s shoulders aren’t as broad as James’ but Kara thinks she might already be holding a piece of the world for Kara, without her even needing to ask for the burden to be halved. So Kara shoulders what’s left on hers and fends off the men as best as she can by Lena’s side, bursts out in full costume with no excuse on her tongue as to how she got in because Lena is staring down the barrel of an extremely overpowered gun and they were a team. Whatever outfit she was wearing, no matter how much Lena didn’t trust her alter-ego… _they were a team_.

Arrow five comes with tears. It’s not how she expected her identity reveal to go. Not even because she didn’t actually get to reveal it herself. But because she expected anger. Avoidance she knew was on the cards. Screaming and shouting and maybe a reckless punch to the face she thought may come because she’d seen how good Lena was with a right hook.

Just not the tears. She laughs when Lena appears at her door at first. She’s soaking from head to toe from the storm that rages outside and not even her vastly overpriced jacket seems to have saved her. Her hair is dripping. She trembles slightly, a gentle shiver running down her skin and it takes Kara a second to realise it’s not from the cold. The shaking comes from the tracks on her cheeks. The ones that visibly aren’t from the rain. The ones that are still forming, and falling, and forming, and falling, even as she stands inside in the warmth. Kara suddenly doesn’t feel very warm at all.

“Lena, what-“

“I’m in love with you.” Kara opens her mouth to speak; Lena laughs humourlessly, a mangled sound that makes Kara’s jaw slam closed. “Don’t. _Don’t_. I’m so fucking in love with you and you’ve been lying to my face for years and I tried. _I tried_ to be angry when Lex told me in his dying fucking breath like he evidently wanted me to be but then you kept texting me, and inviting me on lunches and game nights, and grazing my hand with your fucking perfect knuckles on walks in the park and all I can hear is this voice in my head screaming why? _Why?_

Why have you been lying to me because it doesn’t feel like you don’t trust me, and it doesn’t feel like you don’t care, and sometimes... _too many times_ I have been pushed down by people until I feel like dirt on their shoes but you. You make me feel like I’m worth something. You always have. And I don’t think you’re malicious, and I don’t think you’re cruel because I can’t seem to make myself think a single bad thing about you, and so it all brings me back to this one fucking question, Kara. _Why?_”

_Why?_

It’s a fair question.

Kara’s answers ranged from a thousand excuses and one reason.

“I’ve never told someone I love my secret,” Kara begins. Lena’s next breath is a stuttering hiccup. “The first boy I ever loved was called Kenny. He was a complete dork, like you when you’re not pretending to be one hundred percent badass, and he died before I could tell him anything. Turns out he knew but… I never had the guts to be honest myself. Then there was Donna and the unspoken shared secret. Zatanna who could literally read my mind like an open book. Adam Grant who I never let close enough to figure anything out about me, let alone my biggest secret. James Olsen who knew because my cousin decided my secret was his secret to tell.

And you. I thought you would hate me. Somewhere along the line, you became one of the most important people in my life and I didn’t know how to live with you hating me.”

One of the most important people was an understatement because the thing was Kara did _fall_ in love with Lena. But it wasn’t a sudden drop.

It wasn’t like tripping down a well into a pool of feelings, or falling off a bed onto the hard realisation of love. Kara fell in love with Lena like she was doing a skydive. She shuffled to the edge of the plane and she threw herself down. Smile on her face and exhilarated scream in her lungs. The fear in her bones overshadowed by the swoop in her stomach.

It was fast but somehow slow. Like she was freefalling into love and then threw out her parachute and decided to calmly enjoy the ride to her destination, watching herself fall in love the entire way and knowing she couldn’t stop it even if she wanted to. But when she looks at the ground, at where she’s going to end up, she knows that she doesn’t want to stop it.

She thinks that’s what real love is.

She never wants to let it go.

She hopes she doesn’t have to let it go.

“I could never hate you, Kara. Believe me, I did try,” Lena laughs and it isn’t fake. It’s watery but it’s real and it feels like a readiness to listen. Kara knows she feels ready to speak. It makes her feel like it might just be okay. It makes her feel like _they_ might just be okay. At least she has the time to try and make it so. At least she has the bricks to build their trust back up.

“You could come in if you like. I have dry clothes, and tea, and a life story that I think you deserve to hear. If you want to hear it. I’d like for you to hear it.”

“How does it end?” Lena asks quietly, foot edging slightly forward but not quite taking a step.

“With an apology, and a thank you to whoever made you love me in the way that I love you.”

“Thanking yourself seems a little egotistical,” Lena jokes but steps inside. Closing the door behind her feels a lot like opening a whole new one.

(Kara can’t wait to see what’s inside.

She has a feeling it’s a place she’ll be in for a long time).


End file.
